Monday, July 18, 2011

"Dude, you have to get over your height complex," my friend Craig told me. "We're about the same size, and I rarely think about it."

The first step in dealing with a problem is admitting it exists. Being short is considered undesirable for a male. It just is. There are thousands of Men's Big & Tall shops. There is not one Men's Small & Short one.

Craig chooses not to see himself in an undesirable way, and that's easy to understand. But everyone else sees him that way.

I'm not suggesting that what others think of you should influence your self-opinion. Realizing that you have a problem has nothing to do with whether you like yourself.

A secretary with arthritis knows he has to work harder to impress the boss to make up for inadequate typing skills. He doesn't think less of himself for it.

But if your self-esteem depends on denial of a real problem, it's about as useful to you as that one-size-fits-all bathrobe you bought on eBay that ties around your kneecap.

Only 25 percent of American males are 5-foot-8 or under, 10 percent are under 5-foot-6 1/2 and 5 percent are under 5-foot-5.

If everyone looks at you and notices the same something different, that's their problem, yes. But if you are required to function in their world, it's also yours.

Although body length should make no difference in the way people perceive each other, it does. I'm writing this to motivate you, not depress you. But the fact is, if you are a short man (and I know you are since you've read this far), the cards are actually stacked so high against you, the tops of the piles are out of reach.

America is a heightist society. Tall men get laid more and paid more -- much more -- than their shorter peers. That's fact, not opinion, and not only in the Western world. Across every culture, tall men hold higher status. Even language functions to keep good little men down. Webster's first entry for "tall" is "brave or courageous." For "short," it's "having little length." Obviously, the Webster who wrote the dictionary was not Emmanuel Lewis. Black men call women "shorties," since short is considered a feminine trait. A big man on campus is always looked up to. (Even that phrase, "looked up to," is heightist. It means "to respect.") And which end of the stick represents the worst side of an unequal deal? As a verb-modifier, "short" means to provide less than expected. Stick it in front of the following words and watch their meanings shift negative. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Even the synonyms for short come up short. Diminutive? Wow, that's a positive word. The tall guy gets towering. We get diminutive. Wait, let me press my handy thesaurus icon and get some more … little, petite, dumpy, tiny, squat, undersized, stunted.

Because a man is short, however, doesn't render him helpless. He just needs to reach harder for the top shelf in life. I've done more reaching than you can possibly imagine. So I started this blog to share some of the tips I learned along the yellow brick road.

Ridiculously checkered pants were far from my most severe problem while trying to negotiate life a foot downwind of the entire seventh grade. There I am, on the bottom right, at my normal-size friend Jon Farber's Bar Mitzvah. (In photographs, always look for me on the bottom something.) And remember, these are Jews here, not exactly known for our vertical prowess. (P.S. The kid in the middle doesn't count. He's 11.)

But first, do you really belong here? Answer the following questions and see…* Are your top shelves empty?* Can you comb only the top of your hair in a hotel bathroom mirror?* Do you avoid the short urinal out of principle?

* Is your step stool in storage or out in the open?

* Do short people skirmish over the seat behind you in movie theaters?

* Do you get off at the 14th floor and walk up three flights because the 17 button is out of reach?

* Do people pat you on the head for making them laugh?

* Can you do a football huddle without crouching?

* When you tell a woman, "Gee, your hair smells terrific," is it clear to which hair you're referring?

* Does the automatic flusher in the tall urinals refuse to recognize you?

* Do your feet appear in your driver's license photo?

* Does an evil scientist dress you as a miniature version of himself?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you must follow this blog.

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About Me

Corey Levitan is a short guy with a short fuse and many shortcomings. He wrote a column, "Fear and Loafing," that ran in Las Vegas' largest daily newspaper from 2005-2011. We would like to mention that it has won numerous awards, including Best Local Column of 2008 from the Nevada Press Association. But we won't, because it's obvious that Corey is the one writing this and he doesn't want you to think that he brags about himself.